Grant: Operating Grant: Voluntary Sector Knowledge Mobilization Support Grant

Saint John, New Brunswick, has many services available to seniors (adults ages 65 years or older). As part of a province with high proportions of seniors, it is imperative that the needs of this community are met through different avenues of social, health, recreational, and government programs. However, fragmentation of different services, information gatekeeping, and lack of insider knowledge amongst individuals can inhibit access to these services. Not only does this reduce the ability to access services, but it also causes stress both for the seniors and caregivers trying to navigate the patchwork of services. This is further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Services may have changed their delivery models, closed entirely, or have become more complex to access. Finding mechanisms to help seniors and caregivers find and access the services they need is essential, now more than ever. The proposed project is a personable navigation service that is easily accessible through the Loch Lomond Villa Senior Wellness Centre, a community-based Centre offering services to seniors. The targeted audience is independently living seniors and their caregivers. These services will be offered both via phone and in-person drop-ins. The service will work one-on-one with individuals to help them find and navigate different health, mental health, allied health, social, recreational, and government programs, as well as helping to support them through the application process. It will be specifically designed to help seniors and their caregivers navigate the patchwork of available services in a supportive and socially stimulating way. The program will recruit the services of a coordinator to serve as an entry point, but will also recruit volunteers to provide peer-to-peer mentorship in navigating services. Volunteers will be seniors who have themselves successfully navigated different services and know about different community programs. This way, participants can expect to receive support from someone with similar lived experience and expertise navigating the system and who have already completed the application process. Volunteers who have already had to navigate different services are likely to have innate knowledge about what the participant may be experiencing. The services will be designed with full phone-in accessibility, in anticipation that New Brunswick's COVID-19 situation may change at some point, requiring in-person programming to cease. The fuIl-service phone-in option will mean that the project can continue at full capacity virtually in the event of another wave. This may even provide some benefit regarding mitigation of social isolation should shutdowns once again be required. Project objectives include: 1) support local seniors and caregivers in navigating available services; 2) ueate opportunities for peer-to-peer mentorship for seniors in the community; and 3) offer services in a way that is responsive to social engagement needs.